Screenshot of the Intel webinar on ICT for Mobile Field Workers

Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. (Wikipedia)

This was indeed the setup of the “ICT for Field Workers” webinar or web conference organized by Intel last October 13, 2009 from 11:00 am – 12:30pm (Philippine time).

Hosted by Bernd Nordhausen of Intel Singapore using Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, the webinar was attended by at least eighty-two representatives from India, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, USA, and the Philippines comprising half of the total number of the webinar’s participants.

The webinar was in line with the Intel World Ahead Program’s mission of connecting the next billion users. As such, issues such as access to computers, connection to the Internet, trainers/users education and availability of online and offline content and services were addressed.

One of the highlights of the webinar dealt with the challenges encountered by mobile field workers. Addressing this challenge, Mr. Govi Pillai of WorldVision in Australia, shared their success using the ruggedized netbooks, also known as “clamshell classmate PC”, in their Thailand pilot projects. These lightweight and durable clamshell classmate PCs featured a durable drop-proof construction and rugged outer case, water-resistant keyboard and built-in camera. The capability of these Intel powered ruggedized netbooks improved the productivity and effectiveness of their field staff, efficiently meeting the challenge of supporting remote workers at a reduced cost.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jack Levy of NetHope in Los Angeles shared the challenges on power and connectivity issues. In presenting initiatives on overcoming these issues, Mr. Levy presented the case of the Great Lakes Cassava initiative in Africa which enables farmers to control cassava diseases, strengthen cassava seed systems and develop common scalable education and data collection solutions were presented. An interesting fact which I was able to learn during Mr. Levy’s presentation: cassava is considered as the food staple in Africa as rice is for Asia and potato is for America.

The webinar ended with a lively question and answer discussion which were promptly answered by the presenters.

Ms. Yvonne Garcia-Flores, the new Asia Strategic Alliance Champion for Intel, was the main person who talked to all the global partners who participated in the event.  She appreciated the high level of interest and the active participation of the attendees.

Ms. Rae Rivera-Casas also thanked the participants for registering and making the webinar a success.

A recording of the webinar is available at: http://engageteachers.connectpro.acrobat.com/p52398144.

Below are the links to the materials referenced in the webinar:

Presentation Material

• http://www.classmatepc.com/ICTforMobileFieldWorkers/

Intel-Powered Classmate PC Website

• http://www.classmatepc.com/

Case Studies:

Racing the Planet

• http://www.classmatepc.com/stories/pdfs/Intel-powered_classmatePC-CaseStudy-Antarctica-RacingThePlanet.pdf

Info Lady Project

• http://www.classmatepc.com/stories/pdfs/Intel-powered_classmatePC-CaseStudy-India-D.Net.pdf

World Vision

• http://www.classmatepc.com/stories/pdfs/Intel-powered_classmatePC-CaseStudy-Thailand-WorldVisionFoundation.pdf

Maendeleo Foundation

• http://www.classmatepc.com/stories/pdfs/Intel-powered_classmatePC-CaseStudy-Uganda-MaendeleoFoundation.pdf

Catholic Relief Service

• http://www.crs.org/kenya/disease-resistant-cassava/

For questions or suggestions, please contact Bernd Nordhausen at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .